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Fuzzy Renaissance
Brooks
Barnes
The New York Times
September 21, 2008
BURBANK, Calif.
POOR Miss Piggy. Like most aging stars in Hollywood,
that prima donna pig, along with most of her Muppet
pals, has struggled to find substantial roles. Almost
nobody under the age of 30 remembers “Pigs in Space.”
All everyone wants to talk about is this Hannah Montana
person. What’s a down-on-her-luck puppet to do?
The Walt Disney Company feels her pain. Since it bought
Miss Piggy, Kermit and crew in 2004, executives have
struggled to figure out how to put them to work. Efforts
in 2005 to rejuvenate the furry creatures created by Jim
Henson sputtered as the Muppets got lobbed between
corporate divisions, and a new television series — a
parody of “America’s Next Top Model” called “America’s
Next Muppet” — died in the planning stages.
Now Disney is giving it another go by revving up the
full power of its culture-creating engines. Instead of
the take-it-slow approach, this time the Muppets are
getting the “Hannah Montana” treatment, being blasted
into every pop-culture nook and cranny that the company
owns or can dream up. The balcony blowhards Statler and
Waldorf would be impressed with the ambitiousness of the
plan — even if it does come with equally outsize
challenges.
“We think there is a Muppet gene in everybody,” said
Lylle Breier, a Disney executive who is the new general
manager of Muppets Studio.
Disney Channel is presenting new specials — the first
ran last month, the second will be shown in October — in
which Muppets interact with “High School Musical” stars
and the Jonas Brothers, among other teenage wunderkinder.
A stream of comic videos is in production for Disney.com,
where a new Muppet channel recently made its debut, and
viral videos have been unleashed on YouTube. NBC will
broadcast a Christmas special in December, and special
skits will arrive on certain ABC DVD releases. (One skit
with the working title “Desperate Housepigs” is on a
coming “Desperate Housewives” DVD.)
A new feature film, still untitled, is planned for 2010,
with more in development. Meanwhile the Muppets will
work overtime elsewhere, appearing on a new float in the
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, on “Nightline”
interviewing political candidates and on various talk
shows. More Muppet-theme attractions are being discussed
for Disney theme parks.
And then there is the merchandise. Coming soon: Muppet
clothing at Urban Outfitters and Limited Too stores;
Muppet-theme items like stuffed animals and tote bags,
at Macy’s; and a Muppet boutique at the New York
flagship of F. A. O. Schwarz.
Disney does not want to create a flash in the pan; it
sees the Muppets as a franchise that can sit side by
side with, say, Winnie the Pooh. But creating any flash
at all is the challenge. With the exception of a guest
appearance here and there, the characters have largely
been in cold storage for the last three years. And
because the Muppets have been without a regular
television gig for more than a decade, many children and
younger teenagers don’t know them.
Ms. Breier said recent focus groups indicated that some
children could not even identify Kermit and Miss Piggy,
much less ancillary characters like Fozzie Bear and
Gonzo the Great. The wisecracking, irreverent Muppets (a
combination of puppets and marionettes) also don’t fit
that neatly in the Disney culture, as they differ from
most of the company’s bedrock characters in two big
ways: Kermit and coterie were primarily created to
entertain adults, and they live in the real world.
Henson was so insistent that they stand apart from his
“Sesame Street” creations in personality and tone that
he (misleadingly) titled the 1975 pilot that would boost
their careers “The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence.”
Undeterred, Disney expects the Muppets to expand their
fan base beyond nostalgic older generations to the age
group between 6 and 12 that has powered “Hannah Montana”
and “High School Musical” into international
blockbusters. But how do you make 50-year-old puppets,
even those as beloved to many people as these, relevant
in a “Wall-E” world?
The Muppets are hardly moribund, but they do represent
one of the most striking examples of franchise fumbling
in Hollywood history.
“The Muppet Show” made its debut on CBS stations in
1976, introducing the classic characters Disney owns
today. (The Muppet characters that populated the
inaugural season of “Saturday Night Live” a year earlier
were different.) “The Muppet Show” was full of
song-and-dance numbers and skits, often featuring
absurdist humor, along with backstage antics. Dancing
chickens were thrown in for good measure.
Some of the biggest names in entertainment at the time
populated each episode. Rudolf Nureyev and Miss Piggy,
clad in towels, sat in a sauna and sang “Baby, It’s Cold
Outside”; a bejeweled Elton John performed “Crocodile
Rock” with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, the show’s
house band.
Witty, somewhat subversive dialogue and the
hilarious-looking Muppets themselves quickly won
audiences over. The show, which ran for five seasons, at
one point was syndicated in 100 countries. The
ubiquitous franchise spawned hit movies (“The Muppet
Movie”), hit songs (“The Rainbow Connection”), loads of
merchandise and, eventually, an animated series called
“Muppet Babies.”
But those glory days are long gone. After Henson’s death
from a rare bacterial infection, at 53, in 1990 his five
children took control of the company. They set about
working on new adventures for the Muppets — but not
before dragging them into a nasty court fight with
Disney over terms for a Muppet attraction Henson had
completed for Walt Disney World. And the franchise’s
pop-cultural resonance slipped; the last Muppets movie,
“Muppets From Space,” sputtered at the box office in
1999.
The next year Henson’s heirs sold the family business to
the German media company EM.TV and Merchandising for
about $680 million. But as the German conglomerate
slumped under crushing debt and an insider-trading and
fraud investigation, the Muppets stagnated further. The
Henson children later bought back the classic Muppets
and the characters from the HBO series “Fraggle Rock”
for $78 million (before selling the classic characters
to Disney in 2004 for $75 million); the “Sesame Street”
Muppets were sold to Children’s Television Workshop. The
family continues to operate the Jim Henson Company,
which retains ownership of the Fraggles.
But even Disney, skilled in immortalizing the vision of
a single man, has struggled to rekindle the Muppet
spark. Although Disney estimated three years ago that
the Muppets would be generating about $300 million a
year in merchandising sales by now, retail analysts say
the total for 2008 will be closer to $50 million.
Meanwhile Henson loyalists like the performer and
puppeteer Frank Oz publicly criticized aspects of
Disney’s stewardship. Allowing Miss Piggy to serve as a
Pizza Hut pitchwoman in a Super Bowl commercial created
a major dust-up among fans, even though Henson himself
was overtly commercial. (The piano-playing dog Rowlf was
created in 1962 to sell Purina Dog Chow.) And family
members have at times been frustrated at what they saw
as Disney’s lack of focus.
“Have they been a little slow? Perhaps,” said Brian
Henson, the co-chief executive officer of the Jim Henson
Company. “But the most important thing to us is that
they are careful. Now, more than ever, we believe they
are doing just that.”
Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios and Ms.
Breier’s boss, attributed the pace to the scale of
Disney’s plans. “Developing the kind of high-quality
entertainment we have planned for the global relaunch of
the Muppets takes time,” he said.
In early August a motley group of puppeteers, lighting
technicians, camera operators and Disney executives
gathered on a Hollywood soundstage to work on Miss
Piggy’s comeback.
She perched on the arm of Eric Jacobson, who performs
the Muppet characters originated by Mr. Oz, stared
blankly downward. A crew member brushed her hair and
plucked a piece of lint from her forehead. “Miss Piggy,
are you with us?” asked the director, Bill Barretta.
In the scene at hand, destined for Disney.com, Miss
Piggy would demonstrate her workout routine: bend at
waist, pick up bonbon from box on floor, eat; repeat.
“Kissy, kissy, it’s moi,” she said after the camera
started rolling.
Gently attaching the Muppets to today’s touchstone
issues — healthy living, the environment — is one way
Disney hopes to make them more relevant to the young and
the trend conscious. Hence Miss Piggy’s donning of
workout gear and Kermit’s recent appearance on ESPN (yet
another Disney outpost) chatting with athletes about
being environmentally friendly.
At the same time maintaining the core DNA of the
characters is crucial, so as not to alienate an older
generation with warm memories from their own childhoods.
Miss Piggy, as a result, does not suddenly become a
vegan; she communicates about exercise by talking about
how she hates to exercise. Kermit does not pontificate
on going green; he listens to others talk about it in
his humble, unassuming way.
“We want to be very, very careful that whatever we do is
in the spirit of the Muppets and that we are enhancing
the brand,” Mr. Cook said.
The new Muppet film, for instance, will be geared to a
broad audience, but Disney understands the need it to
retain an adult sensibility. Mr. Cook hired the team
behind the raunchy comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,”
Jason Segel (the writer and star) and Nicholas Stoller
(the director), to deliver the script. Leading up to a
film rather than starting with one reflects the feeling
among studio executives that the film will make a bigger
splash if the marketplace is prepped first.
With merchandising partnerships like the one with F. A.
O. Schwarz, Disney is also trying to tap into a
retailing trend popular with children and teenagers:
customization. American Girl Place stores, for instance,
give shoppers the opportunity to design dolls to their
specifications. F. A. O. Schwarz will do the same for
Muppets fans.
At the store’s Muppet-theme boutique, customers (for
$100) will pick a body shape from various styles and
then accessorize it with “a huge variation of Muppet
parts,” said David Niggli, the president of F. A .O.
Schwarz. (Versions will be sold on its Web site, fao.com.)
The result will be what Jim Henson referred to as a
“hand rod” Muppet: one hand goes inside the head of the
puppet and the other holds thin rods connected to the
puppet’s hands, allowing for gestures.
“Younger consumers expect to be able to immerse
themselves in the brands they like, so this idea is spot
on,” said Samantha Skey, an expert on youth marketing at
Alloy Media & Marketing. She added that as far as
teenagers and children are concerned, “it’s a great way
to bring this brand back from the dead.”
That resurrection is being planned at Disney’s
headquarters in Burbank, inside what Ms. Breier has
called the Muppets’ war room. At a recent meeting the
Muppets team watched a newly completed video for
distribution on YouTube in which Sam, the moralistic
eagle, and the rock star Animal, still chained to his
drum set, perform “Stars and Stripes Forever” with a
chorus of clucking chickens and other Muppets. Everyone
in the room laughed.
The viral videos have exploded on YouTube over the last
month, giving Ms. Breier confidence that her strategy is
starting to work. Four YouTube videos had been viewed a
total of more than five million times as of Sept. 9,
according to Disney research.
And some parents are starting to notice that the Muppets
are suddenly on the radar screens of their young
children.
“I tried getting them to watch DVDs of ‘The Muppet Show’
probably a year or two ago, and they weren’t that
interested,” said Tom Weber, a New York father of two
girls, ages 5 and 9. “But now that Disney is making its
marketing push, they seem more aware and into it.”
Ellie Weber, the 5-year-old, confirmed it. “Miss Piggy
is really funny,” she said. “I like it when she plays
with the froggy.”
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